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“I take it he didn’t tell you how much to expect then?”

“Nevertheless, I have confirmed the amount for my records Mr Chan,” he replied curtly, in an attempt to reassert some control over the situation.

Chan dipped his head in confirmation and snapped a set of giant Bose cans over his ears before turning his back. “You’ll hear from me when I know everything.”

“How will you know how to get in touch?”

“Because you’re about to write your number down. Or do I have to spend an extra two minutes getting that from Lothian and Borders Police’s server as well?”

* * *

Burke was not having a good day all told. First of all, it had not been the most productive of interviews, but Edwards was not one to give up at the mere silence of the suspect.

He had attacked it from several angles before the brief even arrived. When the brief did arrive he appeared a little nervous, but to give him his due, he did have a good go at putting a brave face on it, attempting to counterbalance the nerves with an air of smugness that didn’t quite ring true. He was young and, maybe late 20s, wearing a suit that might just as easily have been worn by a man 20 years his senior and accessorising it with an accent to match, probably a corporate lawyer drafted in for effect, young, inexperienced and easily shoehorned into whatever Andreyevich wanted.

There was something nagging at Burke’s subconscious though; his spidey sense was giving him grief and he couldn’t work out why.

Edwards was really going for it, laying it on with a trowel. Andreyevich used only the phrase “no comment”, though most of the time he just shrugged, leading Edwards to repeatedly say “for the benefit of the tape Mr Andreyevich is shrugging his shoulders.”

After a while Burke was ready to confess to anything himself just to get him to button it.

* * *

Daryl couldn’t raise Leon on the phone. He left countless voicemail messages for the first day, reasoning that it was more than likely he’d run out of credit and couldn’t call back; probably got lucky was the thought that stuck his head. After the first 36 hours the phone didn’t ring and went straight to voicemail. He began to wonder if he’d been abducted by a woman. On day three he began to wonder if he hadn’t been abducted by someone else.

He wouldn’t have done a runner, Daryl felt confident about that. He had faith in Leon. He was the linchpin, although more and more lately the worry was that he was becoming a kingpin. He just seemed to have the answers the other two didn’t. Under pressure he always seemed to be the confident one. Not a bad asset for a boy they’d met when he helped them out of a stand-off in a club a year before. Handy type to have around, knew what to do without causing too much unnecessary damage, apart from that night two months ago when he cut that girl without a hint of remorse. Some dark shit going on between his ears.

He tried again. For fuck’s sake. All he had to do was find one of those charging booth things and stick a quid in it. But Leon probably didn’t know that. He didn’t seem to know his way around tech stuff, like he’d just breezed in from the ice age or something. Come to think of it, with what they were cooking up it was more like he was about to breeze into the next ice age; one of his own creation.

Daryl smiled to himself. Optimism; that was what was required here. Soon enough he’d have them all on the pipe, and then to start making some serious cheese.

Gus was asleep as usual. He seemed to like waking up in time for the six o’clock news, like he cared what was going on in the outside world. It wasn’t like he was a citizen or anything. None of that shit affected him in anyway. Their business was thankfully tax exempt. Say what you like about the Tories, at least they only taxed honest people, the ones that opted into society, hadn’t managed to dodge that particular bullet; the mugs.

He’d give it another hour and then you put some feelers out back in the Brum, see if he’d been spotted or heard of anywhere. Not too loudly of course, it didn’t do to look like you were losing control of things at this end. Word of a screw loose might set off some kind of takeover bid these days, what with all the young ones coming up.

Maybe he’d give it two hours, see what Gus had to say on the matter when he woke up. Just as long as he didn’t recommend shooting him again. Reckless fucker.

21

The plastic surgeon looked decidedly more nervous than last time they’d had the pleasure, like someone living on stimulants. Took one to know one Burke reckoned, but this was a man who hadn’t been spending much time in the land of nod lately.

He seemed to shrink quite a lot outside the confines of his secure domain. No oak panelled solidity here, no comfortable conforming Chesterfields to slouch on, no, just the nasty cheap cleaning product smell of a well-used interview room.

They’d asked that he came to the station this time, for the benefit of the tape as he’d grown so fond of hearing throughout the duration of the morning. He had appeared within the hour. Nipping and tucking was clearly not too popular at the present time. Maybe it was a seasonal thing; no point getting lipo in the run up to Chrimbo on the off chance it just might tear your stitches and leave you with an abdomen like a burst couch.

“Is it true that if you get liposuction on your man boobs and pot-belly that you can suffer from fat knees if you over indulge?” he asked Douglas now, almost unintentionally.

“Ehm, yes. I suppose so,” Douglas replied, wrong-footed slightly by this. “Anywhere you’re likely to store fat other than the area you’ve had the procedure on. Obviously we’re genetically predisposed to store fat in different places and hormones play a significant role, so in men the classic middle aged spread results from the way testosterone makes the body store fat on the abdomen and neck, whereas women are more likely to store it on the hips and of course the gluteus maximus. Doubtful it would be the knees first though. If I were to say remove the fat from your lower abdomen the remainder of the fat cells on your chest would be the most likely area to bear the brunt of the enlargement. Similarly if I were to remove the fat from your chest your neck would be the most likely area and so on. So you might have to do a fair bit of sculpting to get the desired effect on your knees.”

This was the first question Burke asked and he allowed Douglas to continue in this vein. “So if I were to do the right amount of lipo-sculpting and eat the requisite amount of lard, is theoretically possible to have the body of Marilyn Monroe?”

The doctor sighed and shook his head. “I suppose so, but wouldn’t that be an expensive way of doing it when you could probably do the same with hormones?”

“Indeed.” Burke agreed, before adding “were you actually having an affair with Oleg Karpov, or merely taking advantage of the many rent boys you say he brought round?”

Douglas’s head dropped and he began to sob at which point Burke ran out of things to say and looked imploringly at Sam Jones for anything she had. She put some tissues on the desk and handed them to Douglas.

“How did you know?” he asked as he blew his nose loudly.

“Tattoos,” Jones replied. Clearly she selected the good cop role for herself and this routine.

Douglas laughed resigned silent laugh. “Of course.”

“Did you know what all of them meant?” Burke asked.

“Not one,” Douglas answered, laughing again and shaking his head before sniffling some more and dabbing his eyes with the tissue.

“Well one in particular gave away his particular preferences.”